2.2.2.4 Shopping behavior of Chinese tourists
As for shopping, Chinese tourists prefer purchasing electronics and famous or fashion brand-name items their extended network of friends, family, even acquaintances. Chinese tourists would mainly make their purchasing decisions based on their own thought.
In-store shopping experience, product attributes and sales services are weighted as the two most important factors influencing tourists’ purchasing decision. In particular, price and suitable size are the two most significant factors about product attributes. (Tsan- Ming Choi , Shuk- Ching Liu, Ka-Man Pang, Pui -Sze Chow , 2008)
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Chinese tourists’ consumption habits must be understood. For instance, Chinese always haggle, which does not seem to be common in Western countries. The younger generation of Chinese tourists should be known better because of their new shopping manners and custom, Chinese are not only either poor or poorly mannered. Finally, some Chinese tourists expect more respect from their Western hosts and service providers, and there should be no racial discrimination against Chinese.
2.2.2.5 Entertainment choice of Chinese tourists
Most respondents show interest in local culture and customs such as participating in local events, festivals, and shows. They prefer to see things are not available in China. For instance, some are curios about red-light districts, sex museums, and other adult- entertainment venues, simply because those are prohibited in China. Chinese tourists would like to experience some local nightlife, but most people think that evening should be reserved for resting because daytime activities are exhausting.
Some Chinese tourists are interested in shopping. It is Chinese shopping habits: they should buy something if they travel aboard. And buy presents for friends and relations. And some people like to go shopping areas with local flavor instead of regular shops. They don’t mind if purchases are made, the experience will be better. They don’t want “forced” shopping. In addition, their activities of interest include extreme sports, horse-riding, fruit-picking, gambling, shows, and parties.
21 2.2.2.6 Attraction visiting of Chinese tourists
It seems that Chinese tourists are highly safety conscious, and they may not be willing to take risks in travelling to places perceived to be dangerous. Hence, safety assurance is recommended when marketing to Chinese tourists
Chinese tourists are regarded as at least moderately important.
Most Chinese tourists report taking a short holiday is consistent with the limited annual leave Chinese residents have depending on the nature of companies, hence shorter or week long holidays are preferred by most Chinese tourists. Most Chinese take holidays during the three so-called Golden Weeks public holiday periods.
There is a trend for younger Chinese to want more autonomy during their travel, possibly having flexible time to explore the destination rather than
‘‘hopping on and off a coach’’ with a packed and tightly organized itinerary. It seems evident that Chinese tourists travel behavior and life style are changing, and is particularly so for the younger generation. (Beverley Sparks, Grace wen Pan, 2009)
2.2.2.7 Guide evaluation of Chinese tourists
In the travel industry, according to Mancini (2001), a tour guide is a person who take people on sightseeing tours of limited duration. Holloway (1981), on the other hand, argued that the occupation of leading groups of tourists carries a number of titles. (Hanqin Q Zhang, Ivy Chow, 2004)
Chinese tourists emphasize the importance of professionalism. Some people expect the guide to be more passionate, humorous and smile all the time.
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Chinese tourists don’t like guides only give a brief introduction on the attractions seem to have finished his job after the brief introduction. And then sit back with a bad attitude, and charged by hours. Chinese tourists like Chinese-speaking tour guides, understanding local customs and history and be familiar with the city. People expect the guide should not cheat the tourists out of money. ( Hanqin Q Zhang, Ivy Chow, 2004)
Finally, suggest that the tour guides should have tourists’ interests at heart.
(Xiang Li, Cheng ting Lai, Rich Har rill, Sheryl Kline, Liang yan Wang, 2010)
2.2.3Chinese characteristics of different regions
The history and culture of a regional has a huge impact The manchu and Mongolian etc nomads, they are living in the northeast and the north, they have a strong body and nearly barbarous character, skills, hospitality, impetuous, great-hearted is very strong, for my best Pal, these features handed down, formed modern northern one's character. Life in the south of Jiangsu area people because fertile land, the good crop weather, plenty of water, and had a quiet life, rich content with their little ShouTu, at ease in his life. Such historical origin on naturally made life attitude and personality is very comfortable.
Lu xun once said, "the northerners simple and honest, southern are smart. It brilliantly summarized the different nationality north-south character. In the minds of people, different districts gestate different personality. For example a mention of Jiangsu people, who are all known their life are leisurely and very carefully Shandong people, who'll be associated by both traditional and gracious, While Shanxi are guileless. Thus, the person's disposition has strong regional characteristics. Geographical features of a place have largely influence on
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psychological quality and character traits. Chinese consumers show important regional differences in their buying habits. You may very well need different approaches in different regions.
Northern Chinese aren’t quite as price sensitive as other Chinese. They are more likely to pay for convenience instead of shopping around to compare prices. Northerners prefer to eat noodles, meat, corn, etc. Jiangnan people like to eat light sweet foods, rice and fish Jiangnan person's good temper and brain nimble and caused by this. Shandong’s geographical position is special, west on the Yellow River, the east is coast Pacific, in China, It is on the transitional belt effected by the above two kinds of culture, they have dual personality traits：
shrewd and gracious
Northeastern: Pay attention to great-hearted and friend, keep sincerity with each other. The northeastern have handout spirit the personality is bold and unconstrained. They are irritability, temper, and folkway. This is a long years of cultural heritage.
Chinese people in the central coastal areas tend to shop around a lot and try to play stores off one another for a better price .They usually go for the best deal.
Culture of Guangdong is open. Because it is on the verge of ocean, communication with other countries and regions is very opportunity. So people of Guangdong easily inclusive foreign culture and accept new things fast .Guangdong people are naturally industrious, very smooth. They are very rich, but money comes efficient. They are fast and efficient. Politics .influence is too small. They are brave in exploitation, innovation, they like different, too.
They can catch the opportunity quickly usually take enthusiasm at the out part and the style of doing things. However, the Guangdong businessmen exquisite taboo, superstition is heavy. Guangdong businessmen because of its lower cultural qualities and lack of long-term goal, once economic wealth is easy to
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become complacent, Ideological blank, spiritual emptiness make their belief in physiognomy, geomancy, and destiny.
Southern Chinese (particularly Guangdong province) are used to getting good products at low prices. They have had access to factory overruns at deep discounts for many years. Shanghai, for instance, is generally at more avant grade and Western-friendly than Beijing. But contrary to what you may think based on the two cities’ reputations, young Shanghai Chinese tend to be closer to their parents. In spite of the shrewd, People in Shanghai are too smart so that they have vision, they caution, notice details. People in Shanghai are pride ones, they have clear purpose, thinking about economic interests principle only.
Substantial philosophy entrenched. Finally, People in Shanghai obey to law strictly, contract a strong sense of discipline. (HanZheng shun, 2008)
Shanxi reflects the typical loess culture, because it is located in the inland away from the ocean, near the Yellow River and the loess plateau. The "loess culture" and the Chinese traditional ideology have large impacts on it, so, the Shanxi people are guileless. There are relatively conservative personality traits.
Beijing cultural representations, Political character is thicker. As the capital city, Beijing is the political and cultural center of our country. People in Beijing are good at “Kan”. "Kan" is their leisure. "Kan" topic extremely extensive .Another big characteristic: situation.
People in Beijing are honest treatment, no hypocrisy, very practical, advocating and interpersonal relationship. They treat people without cheating, they are gentleman. They undecorated and pay attention to interpersonal, heavy customs, Beijing character is higher, cultural content is high too. They have also temperament, talk chic and broad scope, knowledge, and has certain brings profound artistic accomplishment, they pay attention to work and leisure, pay attention to the quality of life. Understand certain foreign language.
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This study divides the regions by people’s characteristics.
Figure5. Map of China
Source:The map of China ,www.Baidu.com
26 2.3 Tourists’ satisfaction
2.3.1Definition of tourists’ satisfaction
Tourist satisfaction: The tourist’s overall evaluation of the quality of the core service being provided, and the potential result of aroused travel. Satisfaction results when the tourists’ expectations were met. It was linked to other factors of behavior such as motivations and the service encounter. (Gallarza, 2000) The overall service satisfaction with the tour operator, based on experiences from at least one tour, can be examined as well. Swan, Trawick and Carroll (1982) considered that satisfaction was an evaluative or cognitive opinion that analyzed whether the product represented a satisfactory or poor result. It was also an emotional response related to a certain transaction resulting from the comparison of the outcome of the product to some set standard prior to purchase (Halstead, Hartman, & Schmidt, 1994). Davis, Lockwood, and Stone (1998) believed that satisfaction was not a universal phenomenon and that people got different responses out of the same hospitality experience, as customers had different needs, objectives, and cultural backgrounds that usually affected their perceptions of satisfaction.
Within the package context, service satisfaction can be evaluated either at specific service encounters, or for a whole tour. Service encounter satisfaction can be defined as ”The customer’s dis/satisfaction with a discrete service encounter”.(Bitner and Hubbert,1994,p76) It reflected the customer’s feelings about discrete encounters with the personnel, and would result from the evaluation of the events and behaviors that occur during a definable period of time, in this case the tour in question. Although a wide range of studies have been written regarding the determinants of travel satisfaction, it seemed that a
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standard model or framework was difficult to find because it involves too many variables. The so-called “expectancy disconfirmation model of satisfaction” has received much attention, and a large amount of subsequent research was conducted based on this fundamental theory. Oliver’s research work was significant among studies on customer satisfaction and has been applied to different contexts (Millain &Esteban, 2004).
Furthermore, Bowen and Clarke (2002) reviewed the literature and identify arrange of supposed components of tourist satisfaction that include expectation, performance, expectancy disconfirmation (intertwining of expectation, performance, and disconfirmation), attribution, emotion, and equity (a sense of fairness).They considered that each of the components might be suppressed or heightened depending on a particular tourism situation.Bowen (2002) suspected that all the components of satisfaction could be recognized within a tourism context. Prearranged holiday products are produced and consumed concurrently and were largely involved with human interaction among service contact employees and consumers.
Essentially, the antecedent of “performance” itself is important in tourism products, but consumers’ responses to the performance may be more crucial, as a holiday tour, for instance, provides the dreams and fantasies of travelers and no two travelers were precisely alike. Hence, this research adopted and modified the studies of Bowen (2001), Decrop (2001), Oliver and De Sarbo (1988), and Zeithaml and Bitner(2003) but concentrated on customers’
psychological and
JuiChi Chang (2008) examined the causal relationships between consumption behavior and the consequences of tourists’ satisfaction in theoretical terms.
Three process theories—emotion, equity, and attribution—have been proposed.
It also examined their different degrees of satisfaction in line with these three
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determinants. The judgment of these three determinants can be very individualistic and diverse because of their cultural background.
Therefore, the interfering variable—the cultural background—should not be ruled out, as it may directly or indirectly influence the tourists’ different degrees of satisfaction. Little study has been done to examine the influence of culture on the determinants of satisfaction judgments. Interpersonal-relation disposition has a mediating effect in the relationship between customer oriented and customers' repurchasing behaviors .As such, the characteristics of the organization members appeared to be quite important in the quality of travel products and their customer-orient, and interpersonal-relation disposition as customers' characteristics affect their repurchasing behaviors. Therefore travel agencies should take a serious view of these aspects.
Numerous studies have focused on tourist satisfaction in tourism destinations.
One study concentrated on customer satisfaction with the service performance of the tour operator, and other service suppliers, on a guided package tour.
Customer expectation and satisfaction, past travel experiences (attitude and behavior) equity. Concepts of hedonism and enjoyment and product and service performances were discussed in the literature review and then evaluated in the findings. It was also revealed that the attribution of in equity was a crucial issue when considering customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction. (David Bowie* and Jui Chi Chang Received, 2005) Cultural traits accordingly leaded to different degrees of holiday satisfaction (Reisinger &Turner, 1999).
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Figure6. Index system of tourists’ satisfaction level structure